Colic in babies linked to migraines

Health issues in newborn babies are difficult to diagnose – the baby can’t exactly tell you what he or she is going through. But new research speculates that frequent, unexplained crying in babies could be because the child is experiencing an early form of a migraine headache. According to a study from the pediatric department at Robert Debre Hospital in Paris, children ages 6 to 18 who visited the emergency room for migraines were six times more likely to have experienced colic.

A baby is considered colicky if he or she cries for at least three hours a day, three days a week for a period of three weeks, and the crying does not appear to be related to a medical problem. In this study, the researchers analyzed the information for 208 children who were diagnosed with migraines after an ER visit and 471 children who visited the ER for other reasons during the same time period. When the researchers asked parents about colic as a baby, they found that 73 percent of the kids with migraines experienced colic as an infant, as compared to 26 percent among those who did not have migraines.

However, the researchers did note that they had found only an association between infant colic and migraines in adolescence. Further studies are needed to confirm the link.

High resting heart rate could mean early death

Your resting heart rate can be an indicator of your overall health and fitness level–between 60 and 100 beats per minute is considered normal. And now research suggests that if your resting heart rate is higher than that, you could be at risk for early death, even if you’re otherwise healthy.

The Copenhagen Male Study was set up in 1971 to monitor the cardiovascular health of middle-aged men at 14 large companies in the Danish capital. About 3,000 men participated. Doctors evaluated them at the start of the study, then re-evaluated the men 15 years later, checking their heart and behavioral health. In 2001, the study again followed up to see which men were still alive–nearly 40 percent had died by that time.

The researchers found that a high resting heart rate was associated with lower levels of physical fitness, higher blood pressure and weight, and higher levels of fat circulating in the blood. However, even generally healthy men who had higher resting heart rates were at a higher risk of early death, according to the research.

A resting heart rate between 51 and 80 beats per minute was associated with a 40 to 50 percent increased risk of death, while 81 to 90 beats per minute nearly doubled that risk. A resting heart rate above 90 beats per minute tripled the risk of death.

Taste of beer triggers brain pleasure

After a long day, do you seek out a cold beer to help wind down? New research indicates that just the taste of beer helps to make it such a pleasurable experience. Researchers from Indiana University found that the taste alone was enough to cause dopamine to be released in the brain—even before there were any effects from the alcohol.

The researchers conducted two brain scans on 49 men, once after tasting beer and once after tasting Gatorade. The scans showed more dopamine activity after they tasted the beer than after they tasted the sports drink. Test subjects were given only 15 milliliters of beer over a 15-minute period, which would be enough to taste the beer, but not enough to cause a detectable change in blood alcohol level.

The results of the study were seen to be even more significant among people with a family history of alcoholism. If the brain’s reward system is triggered by the mere taste of a cold one, it could help explain why some people may be biologically vulnerable to alcohol addiction.